The primrose of my gratitude
by Cinna and his Clothes
Summary: Primrose Rue Madge Mellark is Katniss and Peeta's daughter. This is a short, one-shot about Primrose finding a primrose and taking it to her mother. It sounds boring I know but please read and review! It also includes a story that Katniss made up about Rue.


Sparkles of dew covered the grass. Bright, lucid yellow daffodils fluttered in the breeze. Small, delicate white snowdrops sway from side-to-side. But my eyes are immediately drawn to the single, lovely Primrose for which I was named. Mother once told me I was named after her younger sister, who died in the second rebellion, but she looked as though she regretted saying it as soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth. I asked her where she got my first middle name, Rue, from, and she just said 'A friend' quickly and then changed the subject. All I know is that in one of mother's stories the main character is a girl called Rue. After that I didn't question her about my names again, even though I was dying to know where my second middle name, Madge, came from.

Before I can stop myself, I push the window open. I climb onto the window sill and look down. The drop is large, but I have jumped out of it many times. Father always says I have inherited my mother's trait of climbing, but I cannot imagine mother clambering up a tree, though he assures me that she used to. I have thought many times if this is how she won the games. I have never dared to ask her, because she has never spoken of it. I have tried to get the teachers in school to tell me, but they just say 'The time will come for you to know'.

I leap out of the window, and land on a soft patch of grass, right next to the golden primrose. I breathe a sigh of relief that I didn't crush it. I carefully pluck the primrose from the earth, and walk around the front to go in the front door. I knock on the door and flatten myself against the wall next to it. Father opens the door and I jump around.

'BOO!' He laughs and picks me up, spinning me around.

'How did you get here, Prim? I thought you were in your room!'

'The window.' I smile mischievously.

'Oh Prim, you'll hurt yourself!' I puff my chest out.

'No I won't! I've done it a million times and I've never hurt myself.' Before he can persist, I produce the Primrose from behind my back.

'I got this for mother.' He looks as though he might protest, but then he smiles and says softly,

'That's a lovely gift.'

I walk inside where mother is sitting on the couch, telling Finnick a story. I have always wondered where Finnick's names all came from. They are even odder than my names, Finnick, Cinna and Gale. I know Gale is mother's very close friend who lives up in district 2. Apparently we went to visit him when I was very young and Finnick wasn't even born, but I don't remember him. I sit down on the floor and listen to the story. It is the one about Rue. It is not from a book, mother made it up. I have heard it many times but I never get bored of it. I let mother's words wash over me as I listen.

_'Rue lay sleeping in the meadow, as all the mockingjays flew down and covered her with beautiful flowers in white, yellow and pale purple. They sung a short, four note tune as they covered her, until she was completely covered in a bed of flowers. They stood around her and whistled the four notes over and over until she awoke, and they fluttered off into the distance. When Rue awoke, she was no longer an ordinary girl, she was a mockingjay. She used her wings to fly up into the trees, with flowers still weaved into her feathers. She flew up into a tree and stayed with another family of mockingjays, and each day she would go to find food by jumping from tree to tree, without using her wings at all! And she's still there today ,so if you ever hear a mockingjay whistling that four note tune, then it might be Rue, playing in the treetops.'_

'Have you ever heard seen a mockingjay sing that tune?' Finnick asks mother. Mother smiles sadly.

'I've heard them sing it many times.'

'Doesn't Rue get bored in the trees?' Finnick asks. He sure does ask a lot of questions for a six-year-old.

'No, Rue is never bored, she has the whole forest to explore.'

'But-' he begins, but I cut across him to save mother from answering his questions.

'Mother, I brought you something.' Mother looks relieved.

'What is it?' I hand her the primrose. Her eyes fill with tears.

'What's wrong?' I ask, startled. She quickly wipes her eyes and says,

'Nothing is wrong. This is beautiful Prim, thank you.' But I can see that she is struggling to stay emotionless.

The primrose of my gratitude is bringing pain instead.


End file.
